Before the Steward and the King
by provisoX
Summary: After failing yet again to please his father, Young Faramir runs away from Gondor and meets Aragorn. What they get is far more than either ever bargained for.


No there is not a lot of talking going on, but the exposition will lessen. The focus will also balance out between characters. But hey, what can you do? Hope you enjoy.

"_Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared."_

-Eddie Rickenbacker-

The rain poured heavily on the forests of fair Ithilien, which to the small group of men that were slowly trudging through it did not seem so fair.

"This is not fair!" cried a soldier, whose name Faramir did not know, "The elements will kill us before the Southrons even find us at this rate."

Faramir knew the man was being insubordinate and taking advantage of the fact that the commander of the small group was too afraid of him to say anything. Indeed, Faramir was very afraid of every man under his charge, for a fourteen-year-old should not have_ any_ men under his charge.

Young Faramir shivered as the wind wiped his cloak around. For about the forth time that march he slipped on the mud that they were sloshing threw. A middle-aged man offered him a hand up which Faramir gladly took, grateful for someone who didn't look at him with hatred. Once he grasped the hand however, he was yanked into the air and thrown back down, the man having used Faramir's small frame against him. The men all laughed and continued on, leaving Faramir sitting in the mud, completely covered in the stuff. He sighed, so much for having an ally. But what did he expect? The men's lives were in his very incapable hands; they had every right to be angry.

It wasn't exactly his fault they were in this mess. He had a large part of the blame, but he hadn't asked for this. Boromir had dragged his younger brother in with him to listen as the various captains decided what to do about a large group of Haradrim that were closing in on Ithilien. They had looked up in surprise at the younger of the Steward's sons, but without Denethor, there was no one to tell him to leave, so the meeting resumed.

Faramir had listened with only half a heart until he heard the plans concerning a large unit of rangers. He did not understand all of it, only that they were to play the bait, and many of them would not survive.

"That is not fair!" he had said to the captains, "You cant kill all those men. You cant do that to them."

The stunned silence should have given it away, but Faramir merely thought they were surprised at his outburst. It was only when they all dropped into a bow that he considered looking behind him. There stood Lord Denethor, Steward of Gondor, glaring down at his younger son. Faramir had quickly bowed and stammered out an apology, but he had embarrassed his father and knew there would be repercussions. He hadn't expected the punishment though.

"So you think you can do better that all these men?" the Steward had asked in an eerily neutral tone. Faramir said no, "Nonsense! Don't be so humble. I can only assume that since you have spoken up you must have a better plan," Faramir could only stare at his father, waiting with dreadful anticipation as to what would come next, "Well now you can prove your worth. You will lead a group of rangers in this operation and show all these men just what sort of stuff you are made of."

Faramir did not want to show the men what he was made of. But his father had proclaimed his doom and the captains had set to work immediately revising their plans to include Faramir. Boromir spoke silently with their father, a worried frown on his face. Faramir had hoped his older brother would save him, but once they were finished talking, Boromir had a smile on instead. Faramir felt his heart sink.

So here he was leading a group of fifty or so rangers through Ithilien in a fierce storm, and the way Faramir saw it, he could not win. Either he would mess up completely had prove his father right, or he would succeed and have to contend with having proved his father wrong, which would only make matters worse.

Of course they were in no real danger, Denethor wanted to punish his son, not kill him. All they had to do was stop a supply caravan that would be lightly armed, while all the other units did the real fighting miles away, including the suicide group Faramir had stood up for and gained nothing.

Thinking about all the men who were doomed to die sent shivers down his spine, or maybe it was just the cold, he could not be sure anymore. They walked on in silence for a while, only about three men actually visible to Faramir, the rest well hidden the forestry. Faramir desperately tried to keep an eye on as many as he could not because he was worried about them, but because he was more worried about getting lost. He didn't know where they were going. He had merely told the name of the rendezvous point (which he had already forgotten) to a young man who had told everyone else and then they were off.

Suddenly the few men he could see stopped and Faramir guessed they had reached the location. All the men entered the clearing he was in and stood as if waiting for something. It took him a moment to realize they were looking at him.

"Umm…" Faramir knew he was suppose to give some sort of order now, but he didn't know what. As the seconds dragged slowly into minuets and the air became thick with animosity from the rangers he began to panic. He tried to grab some intelligible thought to say to the waiting men, but nothing came. Just when he was about to give up, the young man who he told the rendezvous point to saved him.

"Do you want us to set up a perimeter around the valley?" the man asked with a smile. Faramir studied him for a moment and felt the man was sincere. There was good chance it was just another trick, but somehow he knew he could trust the man.

"Yes, I do. The Southrons will come around a bend on the valley floor," now that he had started, it was much easier. All he had to do was recite what the captains had told him earlier, "The valley is not too tall or wide. You will be able to get to the other side easily enough. There will be mostly archers and unarmed men," here he paused. The captains had told him to order the men to kill all the Haradrim. And yet… "If you see laborers or anyone else unarmed you are to spare their lives."

"And how are we to do that?" asked an older ranger, "if we let them escape they will just go back to return again."

"You all have a good shot, do you not?" he asked, looking at the man right in the eyes. It was a tactic he had learned from his father, ask a question that they couldn't answer correctly no matter what they said, "The valley is not very high, as I said. You ought to be able to wound them only. We will take captive all those we can." There was a good amount of grumbling by the men but they had little choice in the matter and soon the perimeter was set. Faramir took his place near the mouth of the valley, where he would be able to see the approaching caravan first. The young man who had helped him joined him.

"Nervous?" he asked Faramir.

"Why did you help me?" Faramir asked, deliberately avoiding the question.

"My name is Damrod. And while I have no great title or greater deeds, I do have a good heart, or so I would like to believe. The other men are being stubborn, taking their aggression out on a young boy who is possibly in greater binds than them. But they judge to harsh, and give no slack, so I will do what I can, if I may," he said softly and kindly. Faramir studied him closely. He was just like any man of Gondor, dark hair and grey eyes, but his eyes shown with a compassion Faramir was not use to seeing in soldiers.

"You may, if you so wish. But in answer to your question, yes, I am very nervous. I can not do this," Faramir said sadly.

"You are doing fine so far," Damrod reassured him. But his words were hollow to Faramir's ears and he shook his head.

"Only because you helped me," Silence settle in between them and Faramir set his eyes on the bend where the Haradrim were to come. Minuets slowly turned to hours and he began to wonder if they would ever come.

The rain had stopped some time ago, but the clouds still hung low in the air. Faramir listened with apprehension to the silence of the forest. Suddenly he saw movement down in the valley and Faramir felt Damrod tense up next to him.

The caravan might as well have been unarmed, with only some twenty archers walking haphazardly around it. Laborers manned the strange beasts that pulled the train with difficulty and Faramir thought he counted thirty defenseless men. He could not see the other rangers but he saw Damrod pull his own bow tight, and arrow waiting to fly.

"They await the signal, my Lord," Damrod whispered. Faramir mentally swore. He knew what the signal was, but unfortunately his birdcalls sounded more like dieing animals and would only serve to give their location away.

"I can not do it, you give the signal." He ordered. Damrod nodded and gave a single chirp that broke the deafening silence. It was than that Faramir realized what was wrong; the forest should not have been so silent.

The strangled cry of a man dying behind them threw Damrod's concentration and the arrow went wide. They both whipped around to see a ranger crash through the foliage, a dagger in his heart. Enemy war cries broke out everywhere and soon there was a calamity of noise.

_Ambush!_ His mind screamed shortly before someone else yelled the same thing out loud. Faramir steeled what little courage he had, but already he could see that the small unit was clearly outnumbered. Haradrim were everywhere fighting rangers he had not even known were hidden so close. He had never been in direct combat like this before and he felt himself panicking. Another man fell near him and Faramir resisted the urge to scream.

"Retreat!" he settled for instead, yelling the command as loudly as he could. A few men had already been running before he had said anything, but those that had remained now fled, scattering every which way in a desperate haste to save their lives. That had not been what he had wanted at all.

"No! Stay together! Do not become separated!" But his cries went unheeded as men continued to flee. Exasperated, he ran through the foliage back towards the clearing where he had nearly failed to brief the men. Those few rangers who had not managed to escape were fighting the Haradrim desperately, easily outnumbered three to one, "Stay together!" he yelled at them, while drawing his own sword, unsure what good he was going to do with it.

One of the Haradrim had now noticed him and charged at Faramir full speed. Faramir managed to block the first strike but the man easily overpowered him and knocked him to the ground. He stared up in horror as the blade came slashing down, only to be diverted by Damrod who knocked the man flat. They wrestled for a little bit before Damrod knocked the man across the head with the hilt of his sword, rendering him unconscious. Faramir smiled gratefully at the man who had saved him twice already, once by saving his dignity and once by saving his life.

In the time it took Damrod to defeat the large man, the rangers had gained the upper hand and the few Haradrim that were left fled. The rangers gathered around Faramir, many of them bloody and all of them out of breath. Faramir took a moment to regain his own lost breath and counted the men who had actually listened to him and stayed together. There were only eleven of them. Where the others had run off to Faramir had no idea.

"We need to get out of here," he said after a moment, trying to sound as calm as possible, "We will make our way towards the horses that we left about a mile from here, then make hast to Henneth Annûn."

"What of the other men?" someone asked. It occurred to him than, that he was desperately out of his league. Leading the rangers before had been one thing, but now that things were so out of control and men were actually dieing, that was quiet another. Faramir took a deep breath, hoping he didn't look as afraid as he felt.

"We will just have to hope they are smart enough to do the same thing on their own," he saw the look of betrayal on their faces, but could not think of anything to say to sooth them, "We must leave now and move quickly but silently. I do not think we can survive another attack."

With that they took off, slinking into the foliage as if they were not even there. Faramir did his best to mimic them, but he was not very far in his training and did not have the experience to hide like these men did. He focused on moving silently, trying to take his mind of the image of the dead man he had seen. He knew death was apart of war and he should not be so shocked, but he couldn't get the image out of his head. He stepped on a twig and it gave way beneath him with a snap that seemed awfully loud to his ears.

He took a deep breath and tried to pretend that this was just another game of hide and seek he and Boromir had always played when they younger. He could always hide from Boromir, who would spend hours searching for his little brother before giving up in exasperation. Of course, now he was is in Ithilien as opposed to Minas Tirith and had death waiting around every corner instead of his big brother.

Faramir wished Boromir were there, for if he were there everything would be all right. Boromir was the positive to all of Faramir's negatives. Boromir could make everything better, while Faramir just seemed to make things worse. But he could not think about that, he had to focus.

They were climbing uphill now and Faramir knew they were close to freedom, assuming of course that the Haradrim hadn't already found their horses. He shuddered at the thought. If they had no horses they would have to walk the whole way and he did not think they could avoid the enemy that long.

Suddenly an arrow shot through the foliage and pierced Faramir in the side. He gave a soft cry and slipped on the mud rolling down the hill they had just climbed and off a bank. He heard the sound of fighting up above before he struck his head against a rock and then he knew no more.

* * *

When Faramir woke he had no idea of where he was or how he had come to be there. All he knew was that his head hurt something awful and his side felt as it were on fire. He moaned and pulled himself out of a bush he was in for some reason only to collapse on the ground. He lay there for a moment trying to come to terms with his pain and confusion when something came up to him and began pushing his throbbing head.

"Go away…" he murmured, though it came out unintelligible even to him. The something continued pushing his head until Faramir, through great effort, lifted his arm and pushed it away. The thing neighed unhappily at him. Wait…

"Laer?" sure enough, the horse Faramir had ridden out to Ithilien on was looking down on him. How the horse had broken free from it's tether and found him, Faramir had no idea. But Boromir himself had picked the horse out, claiming in was as loyal as they came and would not desert its rider. It seemed Boromir had been right.

Slowly things came into focus as Faramir began to remember the events that had led him to this horrible predicament. Some things were still blurry, such as how he had wound up in a bush at the bottom of a hill, but other things were crystal clear, like the dead man's face that kept surfacing up to the front of his mind.

A shudder ran down Faramir's spine and he curled in on himself, a wave of nausea coming over him. In the moment that he lay there trying to keep from throwing up the rain started again. Soon the sickness passed and Faramir brought himself to his knees. His side hurt worse than anything else and upon inspection he found an arrowhead and part of the shaft stuck in his side, the rest of the shaft having broken off during his fall.

He knew he needed to remove the arrowhead, but did not trust himself. He had only been taught minimal first aid in his partial training and was not sure what to do with the wound beside clean it. He did not think he could bandage it himself, and the arrowhead was at least keeping his blood inside him. He needed help but he didn't know where the few men who had stayed with him had gone, and he didn't want to call out lest he risk getting caught. Who knew how many, if any of the Haradrim still lingered in the area.

He leaned against a near by rock and rummaged though his bag, which thankfully had not become lost in his fall. He drank some water from a flask and tore off some bread from the single loaf he had. He had not expected to be gone long when he was given his assignment so he had not brought much food.

As Faramir chewed silently in the rain his thoughts wandered. How could something that had been so simple go so wrong? Their scouts had told them the caravan would come and it had. They had said it would be lightly armed and it was. So how had they been ambushed? Whatever the reason he was sure he was at fault somehow.

The more he thought about it the more unusual it seemed that the Haradrim had been able to ambush them. The only way they could have done it so well was to know ahead of time, but how could the Haradrim know so much and Gondor know so little? How could all the captains and Denethor be so wrong?

The thought that maybe Gondor did know crossed his mind. Maybe his father had known exactly what he was doing when he sent Faramir out into Ithilien. The mere thought tightened Faramir's throat. His father would never do that him; never send him out to die. And yet…

He knew it was possible. The captains had been willing to sacrifice at least three hundred men to win the battle, what were fifty more? And his father had never quite gotten over Faramir failing cadet training when Boromir had done so well at it. And what better way to get rid of a wayward son than to send him out to a hopeless battle? Men were out here dying everyday in numbers most rather not think about. His death would just be one out of hundreds.

Faramir choked on his bread and a tear escaped down his face. It did seem, as this whole thing had been a setup. But it couldn't be. His father was harsh yes, but murder? He wouldn't…

But it seemed like he had. And the more Faramir convinced himself the more depressed he became until finally his sadness turned to anger. He staggered to his feet and made his was to Laer, who had stood patiently the whole time. He knew he needed medical attention and was deserting in the face of the enemy, but was too angry and tired to care. With some difficulty he managed to get into Laer's saddle. He kicked the horse forwards towards the general direction of Rohan. If Denethor didn't want his youngest son around than far be it from Faramir to upset his father further. With determination he did not know he had, Faramir spurred the horse forward, determined to never return to Minas Tirith.

* * *

Aragorn, son of Arathorn, heir of Elendil and leader of the Dúnedain was not happy, not happy at all. Not only had he lost track of the nasty creature Gollum but the rain had also picked up after nearly a week of absence. While it did not rain often here, when it did it always managed to pour. He grumbled unhappily to himself as he made his way across the wilderness in search of something at least resembling shelter. 

While he did not overly mind hiking through the rain, the element made it rather difficult to track anything, much less something as slippery as Gollum. And while Aragorn waited out the weather, Gollum would be getting closer and closer to wherever he was going. Aragorn had an idea as to where that was but did not want to think about going there just yet.

Aragorn was snapped from his thoughts by the sound of a neighing horse. He wondered at this before deciding to take a closer look, thinking maybe the horse had been abandoned or separated from its rider. He cleared the wilderness and dropped onto the road where the horse was. He looked at the beast with a shake of his head before noticing the body lying next to it.

His healer's instincts took over and Aragorn rushed forward. He turned the man over the check for a pulse only to discover it was not a man at all but a child. Not about to be distracted he set to work. The boy was alive but in bad shape. He had a nasty bump on his head and there was a wound on his side that had never been tended to. The boy's lips had a bluish tinge to them and that was never a good sign.

Aragorn sighed and looked around with little hope of actually finding someone else to tend to the boy. Finding no one he realized he would need to do it. It wasn't so much that he minded, but time caring to the boy would be time not spent tracking Gollum. Well, it could not be helped. He could not just leave this boy to die and he was not going to do anymore tracking until the rain let up anyway.

He studied the child a little more and was truly puzzled by what he saw. He had on the garb of a Ranger of Ithilien but Ithilien was many, many miles from here. His hair was limp and lighter than most men of Gondor's. There was also something vaguely familiar about him, but Aragorn could not place it.

Aragorn sighed and carefully picked up the boy. He let out a grunt as he discovered that the boy was heavier than he appeared and grabbed the horse's reigns with one hand. He did not know what story the boy would have for him when he woke up, but he was never going to wake up if Aragorn did not get him out of the rain. And so with that much more determination, Aragorn resumed his search for something at least resembling shelter.


End file.
